--Original published at Rickster's Psychology Blog

I can remember a couple times where cognitive dissonance may have changed my beliefs. I believe it happens more than people think. I experienced cognitive dissonance when I first started weed whacking my home when I was a freshman in high school.

I refused to use safety glasses or goggles when I first weed whacked. I didn’t enjoy wearing any protection because I wasn’t used to wearing glasses. They always felt weird on my face. They always fogged up or impaired my vision from sweating on hot summer days. I didn’t wear ear protection either because earbuds become uncomfortable after sweating and I’d rather be able to hear when my weed whacker when the gas tank was approaching empty. I knew it was a safety hazard but I believed if I always whacked the weeds at a certain angle, projectiles would never hit me in the face s0 I would never need to use safety glasses. I continued this behavior for a few years.

My beliefs completely changed I got my first job as a groundskeeper at a local country club. My first day, I walked into the groundskeepers’ quarters. I noticed a man wearing an eye patch. Instead of being awkward and staring at it for the whole summer, I asked my older coworker what happened to his eye.

He said he was weed whacking around the boundaries of the country club. He wasn’t wearing any eye or ear protection. He ended hit a piece of rusted metal from a barb wire fence which removed years beforehand. This piece of metal went straight through his cornea and blinded him in his left eye for life.

He was unable to make to any sort of lawsuit or receive any compensation for the accident. This was because he removed his eye protection. He also seemed part deaf. It was probably from working around loud equipment for so long.

After talking to him, I always wear eye, and ear protection when weed whacking and working with loud equipment at all times. I even wear jeans and sometimes sleeves when weed whacking now.

Another instance which reinforced my neediness for eye protection is from a story my dad told me. He nearly blew my mind when he said he was welding an exhaust pipe without eye protection. I could see people not use eye protection while weed whacking but I could never fathom someone welding without a welders mask. My dad ended up having a liquid hot piece of metal fall off the exhaust pipe and hit him in the eye. He went to the emergency room even though he thought the debris was out of his eye.

The doctors told him the aluminum was so hot it was in liquid form. The reason why he thought it was gone because the metal melted into his eye. He vision in that eye was bad at first and he recovered. However, he will never be able to see out as well out his right eye again because the metal is still there. He can’t go through an MRI machine because the magnetism involved with the machine would cause the metal to erupt out of his eye.

After hearing those 2 stories from 2 different people and from hearing absolute horror stories from safety meetings, I will never hesitate to use eye protection for any semi-hazardous job I’ll have.

These 2 instances were very rare and serious but I would never want something similar to those 2 occurrences to happen to me. I rely heavily on my eyesight and hearing to play Call of Duty at a professional level so I would never jeopardize my hobby and possibly a career because I didn’t use proper safety precautions to do landscaping work.

--Original published at Sherika's Psych Blog

The process of taking the Implicit Association Test was interesting, as a progressive human society we like to believe that we don’t have any biases when it comes to others, but the test forces you to reflect upon such notions and beliefs. To test whether I truly had biases against others in some capacity, I decided to take the AST’s age and Native tests.

When it came to the age test I was tasked with separating images into different categories ; pressing the E key for pictures and words that I felt were associated with older people and the I key for things that I felt were associated with younger people. When the second part of the test occurred, the E key now became things that were associated with a negative connotation and I was for positive ones. The test continued in this fashion, combing thoughts and emotions into one category while forcing me to categorize the words and images that I saw. At the conclusion of the test, it determined that I had no automatic preference for either young or old people.

The second test attempted to determine if I held an association with the terms “foreign” and “American” in conjunction to Native Americans as well as White Americans. To which the test determined that I held no associate with either.

In regards to the tests themselves I felt that results weren’t particularly surprising, especially as my own brand of philosophical thoughts regarding everyone as a whole operates under a complex series of thoughts that can only be summarized as, “I hate humanity equally as much as I enjoy and love it.” So I felt that my thoughts or potential biases about anything would come close to my personal feelings.

--Original published at olivyahvanek

Taking these tests did not surprise me much, as the results were pretty much what I was expecting. I feel as though I know myself well and was expecting the results that I ended up getting. While taking the test I had clear answers that came to mind while I was reading the questions because I know what my beliefs are and it was easy for me to come up with the answers.

I think that my results were not surprising because I already know what things I think and what my beliefs are, and they are stronger beliefs, so it is pretty difficult to change my opinion. Taking this test was different because some of the questions that were asked, I did not expect. Although some of the questions were more out there than other questions, most of the one asked were questions that I had expected to be on the test.

I think that this test could be useful for college students because it could help to show them what their beliefs are and can also help them to see what they actually believe, rather than what they think they believe in. This test could also be useful in a future career to show the business or place that you are working how you think and what things you believe in before the job is started. This can help people get fired and it can help businesses and companies to know who to hire or not hire people if they do not fit into the company.

--Original published at Noah'sPSY105blog

For chapter 12 I decided to take two different IAT tests. I thought these tests were fairly interesting. Although they were very straightforward their results could be skewed very easily if you were just trying to go through as fast as possible, which could make you look biased according to what are outlined in these different tests. I think that this method of testing is very simplistic but very interesting at the same time because it can show the test taker if they tend to have any biases even if they are not actively aware of them.

The results from the first test that I took were very surprising because it stated that I reflected a strong bias one way or another, but after I took the second test it stated that I did not have a bias at all.

I think this test could be very helpful for college students or essentially anyone moving forward in their career. I believe this because I think this test could draw awareness to any individuals biases that they may not even know that they had and they could work on these particular biases.

--Original published at Courtney's College Blog

For this assignment, I took two of the Implicit Association Tests. The first test assessed my preference of races. The test said that I have a moderate automatic preference for light over dark skinned people. Personally, I do not think I have a preference of color. The test showed images of light skinned people, dark skinned people, positive adjectives, and negative adjectives. I had to sort the images or words in to two piles, depending on what the test was taking for. First, the test associated light skinned people with positive adjectives. After a few rounds, the test associated dark skinned people with positive adjectives. Although I made no errors, it took me a longer amount of time when the darker people were associated with positive adjectives. I believe this is because I was accustomed to associating light people with positive adjectives, and when they were switched, I had to think harder, not because I am racist. I am a light skinned person, so perhaps my unconscious thoughts determined the result. The test said that my preference was only moderate, which is almost accurate.

The second assessment followed a similar procedure. The letter “Z” was said to be “good,” while the letter “Q” was said to be “bad”. There were pictures of meat and vegetables. First, I had to but the “good” letter and vegetables together. I made no errors, and completed the rounds quickly. Then, I had to associate the “good” letter with meat. I made four errors, and it took a longer time to complete. I had a hard time connecting meat with something positive. The results said that I have a strong automatic preference for vegetables over meat. This is accurate because I have been vegan for two years, and vegetarian for thirteen years.

--Original published at JVershinski's Blog

Cognitive dissonance is something that I think a lot of people experience in their lifetime. For some people, it could be a job. For others, it may be a hobby. Personally, I think I experienced cognitive dissonance the most in middle school. Middle school is the place where grades don’t really matter, but everyone encourages you to do well, but you have no motivation to do so. Looking back on it, middle school was probably not the most fun of times, but I still tell myself that it would be great to go back. There are no rewards for getting good grades or being a good person. There is only the self satisfaction of being better than some other people, and being able to show off your grades. I think this is why I have convinced myself that middle school was such a great time. It is very possible that middle school could have been an awesome time, the best years of my life, but I highly doubt it. I had no real motivation to do well, except my parents, but besides that, it’s not like anything that happened in middle school is prevalent today. Whether I got an A or an A- in my 7th grade history class does not matter. The reward of getting good grades and doing well in middle school is so small that I think I just convinced myself over the years that middle school was a great time and that I would love to go back, when in reality it probably wasn’t as fun as I make it out to be.